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According to the Pentagon, the Russian fighter swooped in to follow the U.S. aircraft while in international airspace—an acceptable precaution after identifying a foreign jet, even though the P-8A had its transponders on. However the Russian jet crossed in front of the U.S. plane from right to left, the Pentagon told CNN, engaging its afterburners, thereby prompting the U.S. Poseidon to spanner into "a 15-degree roll and violent turbulence." The Russian military subsequently confirmed that the intercept over international waters did take place but did not address the accusation that the maneuver was unsafe or reveal other details about the...

Effective immediately, U.S. service members on Okinawa are restricted to base and to their residences. Until further notice, alcohol consumption is prohibited. This includes in residences and public locations such as bars and clubs, and hotels. Additionally, U.S. service members on mainland Japan are prohibited from purchasing or consuming alcohol, on or off base. The new restrictions follow an accident Sunday morning in Naha in which a Okinawan man was killed when his vehicle was struck by a truck being driven by a U.S. service member. Alcohol may have been a factor. Commanders across Japan will immediately lead mandatory training...

A Pentagon report composed earlier in 2017 and obtained by reporters at The Washington Times in October makes a chilling recommendation: The federal government should enhance its power to conscript American citizens in wartime, all in the name of social justice. The Times’ Rowan Scarborough wrote that the “Report on the Purpose and Utility of Registration System for Military Selective Service” recommends expanding the Selective Service System (SSS), an independent federal government agency tasked with maintaining personal records for individuals subject to possible military conscription, to include women. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4771, requiring all American males...

If confirmed by the Senate, Griffin could become a key voice in advancing U.S. technology in areas where the United States has long dominated — such as aviation and space — and is now being challenged. WASHINGTON — President Trump tapped former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin for a top Pentagon job, giving him a key role in shaping investments in defense and aerospace technologies at a time when other nations are gaining ground on the United States. Griffin’s nomination to be principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics had been anticipated for weeks, and the White House...

The Islamic State just lost its capital at Raqqa and with it the last of the terrorist group's fantasies of establishing a Middle East caliphate. In recent years, ISIS has horrified global audiences with video clips of unspeakable atrocities. What sort of humans could behead, incinerate, drown, torture and blow up innocent civilians, mock and record such horror, and then narrate their macabre videos for a world audience? How could such pre-modern psychopaths ever be defeated, given that in a matter of months ISIS had managed to overrun vast swaths of Iraq and Syria? The zealotry of the Islamic State...

U.S.-backed forces in Syria are celebrating the defeat of ISIS in its former stronghold of Raqqa. Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces danced and chanted in the streets. Losing Raqqa is a major blow for ISIS as the terror group once called the city its capital.

History Channel Origin of Taps includes the history of Taps and a look at the Broken Note at John F Kennedy's funeral in 1963

Defense Secretary James Mattis told the US Army it “must stand ready” and have military options “our president can deploy” in case diplomacy fails to solve the standoff with increasingly belligerent North Korea. “There’s one thing the U.S. Army can do, and that is you have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed,” Mattis told the Association of the US Army’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, on Monday, according to The Hill. “But that means the U.S. Army must stand ready, and so, if you’re ready, that’s your duty...

The Department of Defense took over the distribution of hurricane relief from government officials in Puerto Rico this weekend after local mayors failed to appropriately disperse the emergency items to the territory’s 78 municipalities, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. According to The Herald, food, water, and medical supplies were previously delivered to 10 regional staging sites in Puerto Rico, but the mayors did not coordinate properly to distribute the large containers of relief at the staging sites. Instead, 10 to 20 soldiers will be posted in every municipality with vehicles and logistical support, where they will deliver relief to every...

The U.S. military said on Saturday it has opened an investigation into fake mobile phone alerts and social media messages advising U.S. military personnel and their families to evacuate the Korean Peninsula. The phony messages, which were spread on Thursday, came at a sensitive time, with tensions high after North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3. The test and a series of missile launches have triggered a war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

Thirty-seven years after the U.S. Air Force shut down a mountain-top radar station in the hills south of San Jose that scanned the skies for Soviet bombers during the Cold War, the summit of Mount Umunhum is finally opening to the public this week as a new park, with stunning views of San Francisco Bay, Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a public agency that owns the 3,486-foot peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains east of Los Gatos, spent $25 million over eight years on the project. Supporters say the new summit, which visitors will...

The U.S. military on Friday pulled back surveillance aircraft that had been watching an 11-bus ISIS convoy filled with hundreds of militants and their family members -- at the request of the Russian government. The ISIS convoy was given safe passage over 10 days ago to travel from the Lebanon-Syria border across the Syrian desert to the Iraqi border in a deal struck between Syria and Hezbollah, which angered the U.S. military.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would prefer not to use military action against North Korea to counter its nuclear and missile threat but that if he did it would be a "very sad day" for the leadership in Pyongyang. Trump again pointedly declined to rule out a U.S. military response following North Korea's sixth and most powerful nuclear test as his administration seeks increased economic sanctions, saying Pyongyang was "behaving badly and it's got to stop." "Military action would certainly be an option. Is it inevitable? Nothing is inevitable," Trump said during a news...

Secretary of Defense James Mattis issued issued a warning to North Korea on Sunday, saying the country would be hit with a “massive military response” if it continues to threaten the U.S. Mattis mentioned any threats to the U.S. and their allies, including territories such as Guam, would cause the U.S. to respond with strong military action. “Any threat to the United States or its territories including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response,” Mattis said outside of the White House after a meeting with President Donald Trump. The defense secretary called out Kim in...

Americans continue to get fatter and it’s delivering a huge blow to the country, both in higher health care costs and undercutting military recruiting, according to a huge new study. The 14th annual State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation bluntly reported that 70 percent of the nation is obese or overweight. And while the rate of obesity growth is leveling off, the costs aren’t. The report, for example, said additional health care for obese adults and children is $150 billion a year and billions...

Al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lost his aura of invincibility in 2006 when the U.S. military released raw outtakes of a captured video showing the terrorist chief to be a befuddled, pudgy bumbler in a black ninja costume who didn’t know how to operate a machine gun.4 But some in the U.S. military didn’t get the value of ripping down al-Zarqawi in this way, arguing that the machine gun, an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, is “complicated to master” and requires extensive training. Plus, the M249 in question was an “older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising.”5 Arab journalists, on the...

BALTIMORE (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender individuals joining the military. The federal lawsuit was filed in Maryland on Monday by the ACLU of Maryland on behalf of several service members who are transgender. Trump directed the Pentagon on Friday to implement the ban on transgender individuals joining the military, which he first announced in a tweet. He also gave to the Pentagon the authority to decide the future of openly transgender people already serving. The lawsuit says Trump’s policy violates the equal protection rights of transgender service...

Trump gives the Pentagon six months to kick THOUSANDS of transgender service people out of the military if they are deemed 'non-deployable'. A month after he announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military via Twitter, Donald Trump has issued a memo on how the decision is to be implemented. The two-and-a-half-page note says Defense Secretary Jim Mattis must consider a service member's 'deployability' when deciding whether to eject them from the military. That means that if they are unable to serve in a war zone, take part in training or serve on a ship for months, they...

Monday night President Trump announced to the Nation the recommitment of America’s will, military, and diplomatic might to the fight in Afghanistan. He signaled to all that this Nation will not back away from hard sacrifice to ensure our safety. Undoubtedly, you will hear the hue and cry from the President’s detractors recalling a need to withdraw from Afghanistan and their rallying cries of failed campaign promises and abandonment of America First. Do not listen to them. Make no mistake, I have been with the President since nearly the beginning, well before he was the Republican Presidential nominee. I wrote...

FULL TITLE: The U.S. Military Will Be Conducting ‘A Major Military Exercise’ On The Korean Peninsula During The Solar Eclipse On August 21st, approximately 25,000 U.S. troops will join “tens of thousands” from the South Korean military to conduct a “major military exercise” that is already triggering threats from North Korea. Considering the fact that any sort of provocation could cause a nuclear war to erupt on the Korean peninsula, is this really a wise thing to do? The more research that I do on this upcoming solar eclipse, the stranger things become. When I first started hearing about this...